Damning new figures show that Pembrokeshire County Council is nearly £200m in the red - with debts soaring by 9.13% over the last 12 months.

This means that every person in the county is £1,536.69 in hock.

The latest BBC Shared Data Unit analysis of data by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities shows that in Pembrokeshire, the total debt at the end of the last quarter of the financial year was £192,095,000.

This is up from a figure of £176,026,000 last year.

It was revealed last month, that Pembrokeshire County Council ended the last financial year underspending by £2m, in part due to an extra £1.2m raised through second homes tax, despite a dire forecast it was to overspend by £1.4m.

PCC’s Cabinet Member for Corporate Finance Efficiencies Cllr Alistair Cameron warned the underspend “must not be used to mask the financial challenges in the medium-term financial plan”.

Carmarthenshire marginally increased its county debt by 1.4% from £410.1 million to £415.8 million.

Together, Welsh councils owe a combined £6.4 billion; giving a total debt per person of £2,034.

Across the UK, councils added more than £7 billion to their total debts, the Shared Data Unit found.

A total of 32 councils had no borrowing on their books at the end of 24-25. There were no Welsh authorities on that debt-free list.

Analysis of data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) shows UK councils owe a combined £122.2bn to lenders, equivalent to £1,791 per resident, as of April 2025.

Councils can borrow funds to invest in projects such as schools, leisure centres and theatres - they can also borrow to invest in property that will bring in an income over and above repayments on the debt.

But the recent rise is being partly driven by a near tripling of short-term lending from central government, which in some cases is being used to paper over holes in some council revenue budgets rather than pay for investments and town centre improvements.

Experts including Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) said the spiralling levels of debt at local authorities was “extremely worrying”.

“That is not a sustainable system. As one local government finance officer said to me, it's essentially payday loans for local governments,” he said.

“I don't think the government would say that’s it’s long-term ambition. They would say that is what we have had to do to paper over the cracks while we introduce a new funding system for local government.”

It was revealed ahead of the summer, that the Chief Executive of Pembrokeshire County Council Will Bramble is set for a pay rise of around £4,800 this year if unions agree on a new offer for chief officers, meaning his pay will have risen by nearly £50,000 since 2021

The CEO will benefit from a 3.2% increase in his six figure wage, bumping it up to £155.750.